Advertising disclosure: This blog participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

"We have totally lost control."

A Customer Service Tip of the Week subscriber sent me that message. He explained that his new manager lacked leadership skills and played favorites. A once strong team was now struggling.

Customer complaints were rising and missed calls had increased ten-fold.

Surviving a bad customer service boss is never easy, but I had one suggestion. Here's the advice I shared and how you can use it, too.

But first, what exactly makes a boss a bad one?

What makes someone a bad boss?

There are a lot of things that can make a customer service leader a bad boss. They can be difficult and challenging. They might micromanage. Some give conflicting direction or no direction at all. Sometimes, they're unkind.

I’ve witnessed many treat employees as disposable commodities. They fail to provide any training or guidance and then fire employees the first time they do something wrong.

Bad bosses all have one thing in common: they don’t give employees what they need to do a good job.

Emily Guendelsberger wrote about the challenges of working with unsupportive bosses in the excellent book, On the Clock. It chronicles Guendelsberger's experience working at Amazon, Convergys (an outsourced contact center), and McDonald's.

There's one type of boss I'm leaving out: the illegal boss.

This is a person who breaks the law. They steal employee wages, harass, discriminate, and otherwise violate employees’ rights. This post isn't about that type of boss.

With an illegal boss, you’re options are limited: 

1. Report them.

2. Quit.

3. Remain silent.

It's a difficult, no-win situation. Reporting them can be a long process. It's not easy, and you might find yourself subjected to illegal retaliation. Quitting isn't easy, either.

And remaining silent and continue to be subjected to the bad boss’s poor treatment might be the worst option of all.

I really hope you don't have an illegal boss.

What do you need to know about your boss?

There's one thing you should know about your boss if you work in customer service. This applies whether they're a great boss, a mediocre one, and especially if they're terrible.

You need to discover their hot button.

A boss's hot button is the one thing they care about the most. They talk about it constantly and probably fear it. The hot button is often how their performance is evaluated by their boss.

The way to get through the experience is to make sure that your boss's hot button is always being addressed.

They're calm when their hot button is handled. They're bad behavior often gets better. Many stop micromanaging once their hot button is handled.

Bad bosses worry when when their hot button issue isn't going well. A bad boss will take out those worries on their employees.

Every boss has a different hot button. It's usually not something generic like make more money, cut costs, or keep customers happy.

Hot buttons are usually very specific. Here are a few I’ve experienced:

• One boss cared most about image because she had lost influence with the executive team.

• Another was hyper-focused on cashflow because a new investment went poorly.

• One boss worried about getting fired because revenue was down.

The way to survive a bad boss is to take care of their hot button.

For example, I learned to eliminate risk with the manager who was afraid of being fired. I found a way to shorten lead times for my biggest customer, which would increase our revenue. I made sure my manager’s boss got excited about the idea so my boss would be fully onboard.

Keep in mind that you work for your boss, not the other way around. You’re inviting trouble if you ignore your boss’s hot button issue or actively work against it.

Why do bosses go bad?

Let's take a moment to empathize, so we can better understand bad bosses. It's not easy being a customer service manager. Otherwise good people can suddenly find themselves becoming a bad boss and failing to give employees the support they need.

A study by West Monroe found that managers face several challenges:

• 44% feel overwhelmed

• 43% of new managers receive no training

• 23% spend 5+ hours per day on administrative tasks

Many face overwhelming pressure from their own bosses to get results. That pressure is often the source of their hot button issue.

Managers who have never received training don't know how to help their employees perform better. And far too many spend the majority of their time on administrative work, which means they aren't able to focus on their employees anyway.

You remove some of the burden when you address your boss’s hot button issue.

Conclusion

Find out your boss's hot button issue and then make sure you address it. Sometimes, your boss’s hot button is obvious. Other times, it helps to ask your boss to tell you directly what they care about most.

The subscriber who emailed me had that conversation with his boss.

He learned his new boss was overwhelmed and was looking for employees to step up and proactively take on new responsibilities. The boss wanted employees to operate with autonomy and not come to him with small issues.

The boss's hot button was time—he didn't think he had enough to get everything done.

And just in case you're a boss reading this, I've assembled a couple of resources just for you.

The first is Getting Service Right, a book that identifies the reasons why good customer service employees underperform and shares proven solutions to help them do better.

The second is my LinkedIn Learning course, How to Manage a Customer Service Team.

You'll need a LinkedIn Learning subscription to watch the entire course, but a 30-day trial is available. You can also watch a short preview.